


dreaming of neverland

by A_Confused_Kitten



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 500 Words Challenge, Gen, Introspection, Neverland (Once Upon a Time), Neverland Renaissance (Once Upon a Time), POV Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Stream of Consciousness, and it doesn't take it well when people leave, neverland is alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Confused_Kitten/pseuds/A_Confused_Kitten
Summary: Neverland is alive.The dark jungles are hungry and vicious, the mountain peaks cold and harsh. It's not a place people are meant to live in, and only the strongest can even hope to survive there.Even the sea, the only constant in his life, never fails to go for the kill. He's seen the most experienced sailors succumb to its depths, nothing to do but watch as his crew was lost to the deep. Hell, Killian himself almost drowned here.And yet, here he is, back in the place he swore he’d never return to.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Kudos: 19





	dreaming of neverland

The island is alive.

Killian has always known this, just as he knows the back of his hand. It is a fact, simple and clear. Neverland is  _ alive. _

The dark jungles are hungry and vicious, the mountain peaks cold and harsh. It's not a place people are meant to live in, and only the strongest can hope to survive there.

Even the sea, the only constant in his life, never fails to go for the kill. He's seen the most experienced sailors succumb to its depths, nothing to do but watch as his crew was lost to the deep, and no one's exempt from its cruelty.

And yet, here he is, back in the place he swore he’d never return to. It’s an oath twice made, and an oath twice broken. 

He’d burned the only way to Neverland without a portal what seemed like centuries ago, and bloody hell, it had been. In his time of madness and loss, when pain and love and regrets had  _ screamed _ inside his head every waking moment, it had given him centuries in the blink of an eye.

If Neverland had its way, it would have given him a millenia. 

The island saw him the same way he saw his Crocodile, full of loathing and a passion to eliminate. Because Neverland is alive, and it  _ hates  _ anyone who leaves its shores.

Because Killian Jones walked away from Neverland once with ease, and Captain Hook spent decades trying to escape it.

He’d promised himself he’d never come back, never step foot on this dreaded island. Never return to the place that had stolen the only family he’d ever had, to the place where his crew had died, picked off one by one until he learned to obey the immortal child.

Every moment here is a moment he wants to be anywhere else. To be somewhere that isn’t so blatantly  _ wrong.  _ Somewhere time flows and the stars don’t taunt him, saying that “  _ you could have saved him  _ ” because the truth hurts so, so much  _ more  _ than Pan’s lies.

“You’re quiet.” Emma says.

“Does that surprise you, love?”

“You’re the only one who’s been here before, so if you’re quiet, it means something is wrong.”

And there are so many things he wants to tell her.  _ This place is dangerous,  _ he wants to say,  _ it takes what it pleases.  _ And he wants to tell her how to charm the mermaids, how to survive off the bunkers abandoned by the Lost Boys, before they were  _ lost,  _ how to avoid dreamshade’s poison touch.

He wants to tell her everything he’s had to learn. But the words won’t come. “It’s smooth sailing, love, and it won’t stay that way come morning. Neverland is on the horizon, and peace is a foreign word here.”

Killian shouldn’t be here, the opposite, really, but he’s a man of his word.

But he knows the facts, just as he always has.

Because Neverland takes what it wants, and Neverland will never let him leave.


End file.
